Tourism map revisited

The Tourism Advisory Board met Wednesday at noon in the Utilities Board Room with several housekeeping items on the agenda.

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LA Junta Tribune - La Junta, CO

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Posted Feb. 10, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Posted Feb. 10, 2013 at 6:00 AM

The Tourism Advisory Board met Wednesday at noon in the Utilities Board Room with several housekeeping items on the agenda. They were: changes to the application form, renewals of subscriptions and annual events and changes to the city map, due for revision before the next printing. Beverly Babb, Pat Jernberg, John Yergert, Larry Tucker, Pam Denahy (events coordinator) and Phil Malouff (city attorney) were present.

The city map has been a success for promotion of local attractions and convenience of tourists, but many have suggested it would be better printed in a landscape format rather than a portrait format. Also up for consideration are the insets, which caused some confusion in use. Minor changes will be made by the map company at a cost of $80 an hour, but major changes (of which change from vertical to horizontal may be one) would cost more. The board will be given copies of the maps with suggested changes noted and will reconvene on Feb. 22, 12 noon, to consider the changes.

The application of InspirationField for another grant for this year's Cinco de Mayo marketing and promotion passed the board and will be presented to the La Junta City Council. The renewal of the Visit Denver membership was also passed, considering it provides for the presence of the La Junta brochure at Denver International Airport and the Denver Convention Center and also gets La Junta mentioned in the Visit Denver publications. The brochure costs $300 and the membership $500, which the board all considered money well spent.

City Attorney Phil Malouff expressed concern that the board was considering taking out Section II, E, 4 - deleting "lobbying, advocacy or related activities." Malouff was concerned that failing to eliminate these propositions might put the board contrary to national and state law, which strictly forbids the use of public tax money for private interests or gain, including political gain. The board has approved hiring a lobbying firm to promote the interests of passenger rail, which Malouff considers to be allowable, but once a bill is introduced, he feels the spirit of the law might be violated. For the same reason, he has vetoed the application of Arkansas Valley A Factor. He feels the application could be rewritten to establish the Battle of the Bands as an ongoing event to attract tourism to the city, however.

The question of outside attraction of events to contribute to the income of lodging places brought forth a discussion of ways to track people who come to town for these events and stay overnight. The suggestion was made that the motel owners themselves be consulted with some sort of meet-and-greet or an invitation to come to a meeting and discuss what could possibly be done to track whether people are actually coming to town for these events.

The signs project has not been scrapped. The signs have been designed and construction details worked out, but the location for the signs has to be cleared with the Colorado Department of Transportation, the city of La Junta, and in some cases, the owners of private property.